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Trip report: the route to the Midnight sun (or not)



 
 
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  #1  
Old August 30th, 2005, 05:32 PM
tim \(moved to sweden\)
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Default Trip report: the route to the Midnight sun (or not)

Having been somewhat pessimistic about my chances for going on
this trip, and then doing it, I feel I ought to write you a report, so here
it is.

It's lucky that I actually had no interest in watching the sun 'not' go
down, as that ended on July 28th. But even if it hadn't (ended), I still
wouldn't have seen it as, as you will hear later, the weather was not
helpful, but no more advanced info, on with the story.

This first part is hopefully going to be helpful hints to others who may
like to try the route to that final tip of Europe before you end up
driving into the sea. If it meets with approval, I'll report on the rest of
the holiday. BTW I am in my GB RDH car so overtaking
possibilities are important information for my trip. The times
quoted are the actually driving times with the breaks factored out.

Due to project requirements I volunteered (honest) for my holiday
to be in the 'low' season, from August 13-27, yep that's the low
season here! I chose these dates because: I expected the traffic to
be lighter (which it probably was), accommodation easier to find
which it was but because, contrary to my third expectation, it wasn't
cheaper so it was hard to take advantage of this greater availability
on the day.

So Why did I get caught by this more expensive accommodation?
Well, I was aware of the standard 'Scandinavian' practice of hotels
being cheaper in the summer holiday, but I had assumed that this only
applied to business destinations, not for one minute did I think that
this would apply in locations that were predominately tourist
destinations, but it does. Visit a two thirds empty Northern hotel in
autumn and they want 60% more for a room than during August when
they are full. Hum, perhaps some budding Economics expert can earn
himself a Nobel prize by using this to disprove the laws of supply and
demand!

And if the high prices aren't enough, the prospect of using the local
tourist office to find me somewhere to stay looked bleak. Outside
of the high season, many close at 16:00 and don't open at all on
Saturday/Sunday. Is there really not enough tourists for them to
remain open after mid August?

Fortunately, I enquired about these things from a couple of Tourist
offices before I left and decided that I would have to book up my
route beforehand using 'internet' specials, and seeking out the few
hotels that did consider all of August to be summer! A couple of
people suggested that empty hotels would 'negotiate', but I don't feel
happy playing that game and in any case, this doesn't help if it is
impossible on the day. So instead of having the freedom to change my
plans as I travelled, I was stuck with a (mostly) pre booked route, just
like if I had scheduled the journey during the busiest weeks. Oh well.

A few people did suggest 'camping'. I politely declined this option as
not for me because I didn't want the aggro of a tent (but I didn't
actually say that). But when later, I saw some of the camp sites I
realised that they mean in 'cabins', but nobody actually said this.
Perhaps to Scandinavians the meaning is obvious, but to me it wasn't!

Day 1. Sat 13th, Skane to Falun.
The normal route from my temporary home, on the southern tip of
Sweden, to the north, is to use the motorway through the centre of
Stockholm, but as I wanted to visit the two Middle Region Unesco
sites on the way, I detoured north from Norrkoping to Engelsberg
Ironworks and Falun.

The day started off with drizzle, but after less than an hour it was
bucketing down, this probably cost me 20km/h and overall added
an hour to my journey time. This is the last weekend of the summer
holiday and many people will be going back home today, but the
traffic is light, perhaps they will all start later.

Arrive at the Ironworks at 15:45 confident that on its penultimate
opening day of the year it would still be open, but no, the last of the
three tours went at 15:00. Most disappointing, seems pretty poor
for a site of such pedigree, but if that's all the demand that there is
then so be it. If it's this hard to visit I doubt that I will be back.
I did manage to around the outside of the closed buildings, but
you can do that at any time.

I continued to Falun where I arrived at 17:45, just in time to get the
necessary information from the Tourist office. I wonder how often
that will happen?

I'm booked at the First Hotel, which being immediately opposite
the TO I found immediately. This still (by one day) being summer I
had booked the bargain rate of 578 SEK. Pity about the parking, for
which they wanted 10 Kr/h every hour, 7 days a week. And yet 20
yards away the street parking is free after 15:00 on Saturday. I do
so hate hotels that try and charge tourists at the weekend (when on
street parking is free) the same rate as they charge weekday business
people and their expense accounts (when it isn't). I think it
shows a certain contempt for their guests (i.e. it suggests that they
are too stupid to check). The hotel is not great, but as it's the
cheapest I have managed to book all fortnight, it was OK but
let down by the shoddy bathroom.

Summary for the day: 464 miles, 7.5 hours driving time.

Day 2. Sun 14th, Falun to Umea.
Day starts with a poor breakfast - stale bread. Um!

First stop the Copper Mine, opens at 10:00 and I'm the only one
there. There are tours in English, Swedish, German and French,
I book for the first English tour at 10:45 and spend 30
minutes in the tiny museum. When finished, I go to the tour point
and there's a group of a dozen for the German tour, well at least
some nationalities are on holiday. My tour starts and there's
a Dutch family and me. Good tour. When finished we cross over
with the next English tour which has 30 people on it, so it does get
busy.

My day's drive starts at 12:00, fortunately it is fine and I make good
progress on the roads. All roads today are 4 lane motorway, 2+1
"wirevag" or the wide 2 lanes, common in Sweden, with a shoulder
that if you are lucky considerate caravan drivers will drive in
allowing you to overtake them with ease. On the way I spot(!) some
huge road temperature signs that Vägverket have installed on the
road. They are not working, I guess that in this part of the world
the temperature is irrelevant when it is above zero.

Along this route the Swedes are building a new railway to the north
which I cross several times. As this route is flat it is surprising that
this was not the original choice, perhaps it was difficult to cross the
(few) rivers this low down when the original northern railway was
built?

Nothing of interest to stop at this day, so I arrive at my destination at
19:00. Once again I'm in the 'First' Hotel at the weekend price of
690 SEK. Again this is OK, but not great. And they too try the
parking trick, except that this time the 'free' municipal parking is right
outside the front door, whereas the hotel paid parking is around the
corner. Town is of moderate interest, but not worth a stop if you
aren't going there anyway.

Summary for the day: 366 Miles, 6.0 hours driving time.

Day 3. Mon 15th, Umea to Pajala(!)
Another rubbish breakfast. The 6:30 starters have cleared the table
of the hot food, and despite my prompting no more is cooked.

It's showery today. About half the roads I'm using today are wide
roads and half normal 2 lane road, but as there is little other traffic
on most of these I have no problem overtaking. In the morning
I need some fuel and unfortunately the place that I stop only has
'automats'. It can't be that hard and I give it a go. After it eats my
money I take a further 20 minutes and some help from the
only non-English speaking Swede in the world to eventually work
out which buttons I have to press to get that which I have paid for.
Whatever anyone else says, these things are not easy to use if you
can't read the instructions. I shall make sure to avoid them in
future

I notice lots of buses on this road, obvious the absence of a railway
service has something to do with this. They have a clever system
of 'request' lights on the main road where the main road by-passes a
village telling the driver if there is anybody wanting the bus, otherwise
he will skip that village. I wonder how the villages will fare for a bus
service when the railway is finished. Presumably the frequency of the
buses is based upon the needs of the large towns and the passengers
from them will likely move to the railway when it is completed?

The destinations for today include the 'church village' at Gammelstad
(outside Lulea). I don't find it that exciting. It's a little bit false,
what used to be empty 'huts' used once a week, have been turned
into tiny houses used all the time and the restoration is perhaps too
pristine.

Instead of driving direct from Lulea to Pajala, I take the detour to
Tornio as it is the only Finnish town that I can include in my route (I
have never been to Finland). The guide book says that Tornio is
much more interesting that its twin Swedish town of Haparanda.
Haparanda must be a real dump!

From here I have the long drive over Lapland to Norway. I have
split this in two with a stop at Pajala on Rt 99, at a hotel that I found
in a guide book. Half way up this road is the Polar circle, at which
there is a little sign and a gift shop - which is closed. The weather has
got cold now, I need my jumper and my coat, in August!

On this road I also have my first 'animal' moment, having to slam
on the brakes to avoid a reindeer in the middle of the road. I don't
know whether it is luck, or better observation but despite many
more reindeer this is the only time that I have to perform an
emergency stop.

There are very few signs by the road offering 'rooms' and of those
that there are, none say if they have vacancies or not. Perhaps if they
are full they take the sign away? I'm quite glad that I didn't leave
booking a room until I arrived.

Pajala. This is like a US freeway town, a motel or two, a gas station,
a burger bar, a supermarket and a dozen houses, except it doesn't
have a freeway, just Rt99 with a few hundred passers a day.

I'm at the Hotel Smedjan, 995 SEK including dinner. Dinner is
Reindeer and mash served with the ubiquitous red berries and they
stop serving at 20:00. It's nothing special, a bit like minced beef, not at
all like venison? The hotel is as expected for something in the middle
of nowhere, it's clean and adequate. I note that tonight there are 5
guests in its 30 rooms and there were few others in the restaurant. It
must be really hard to make a living here, even at these prices!
Perhaps there is lunch time trade?

Summary for the day: 385 miles, 6.5 hours driving time.

Day 4. Tues 16th, Pajala to Alta.
I cross the river Tornea into Finland. But there are no more towns,
only freeway villages. And the scenery isn't that interesting. It isn't
actually very mountainous here, just vast expanses of grassy nothing.
I see almost no other cars on today's trip. Lots more reindeer though.
I discover that they are very tolerant of cars, but not of people. They
run away as soon as they sense that you are going to get out, pity.
Nothing else to stop for, so I just drive over the tundra into Norway,
without even noticing the border, to Alta arriving at 15:00.

My destination was selected as I managed to find a hotel at a
reasonable price using hrs.de and I thought that the drive all the way
to the Cape would be too much for one day. I am here for two days,
out and back to the Cape tomorrow.

Park Hotel, 795 NOK including buffet dinner, all you can make
yourself waffles internet in the lobby and parking! The hotel is
quite good. The town is nothing special.

The buffet dinner is strange. It's the same as breakfast plus soup, no
hot options or veggies. I find out later that this is normal for this type
of meal!

Summary for the day: 268 miles, 5.0 hours driving time.

Day 5 first half. Wed 17th, Alta to Nord Cape.
At breakfast we get porridge, but no other hot food.

It's a very dull day, rains a bit and very overcast when it's not. The
trip to NC takes much longer than I expect for the distance. The
roads are not good at all. It was a good idea not to try to do this the
previous day.

There used to be a ferry to the island, but it was so busy that they
replaced it with a new toll road and tunnel. 140 NOK each way.
There are 5 tunnels in all on the route, and they are very dark and
dingy, not nice to drive through at all, other countries don't make
their tunnels this bad.

On approach to NC, I'm surprised to see more 'toll' booths. 190
NOK, what a rip off!!! Just to park my car and walk to the end
of the world. There's a few static exhibits and a short video, but it's
still extortionately expensive. In a car you don't have any choice but
to pay this (other than to turn around and go back), but if you are in
a bike (and I did see a few) you can probably avoid it.

I check the nationality of the 30 or so cars in the car park, there's:
D, E, FIN, PL, S, N, DK, F, RUS and NL, oh and my GB.

The headland is disappointing, but that because of the weather. Short
of coming again (I won't be) I'm stuck with that, at least after 20 years
of thinking about going, I have got here!

Whilst I am there the coaches from the Coastal Steamer arrive and
it disproves my theory that it is only frequented by Americans. There
is one coach for English speakers, one for Norwegian, one combined
for the Mediterranean languages, and four(!) for German speakers.
I wonder if this coach trip is in included in the wallet busting steamer
fare or an extra? Perhaps it doesn't matter.

Summary for the half day: 151 miles, 4.0 hours driving time.

Total for the trip from Oresund to NC 1634 miles, 29.0 hours driving
over 4 and a half days. It could easily be done in 4 days if you can
find somewhere north of Pajala to stop on day 3, but Pajala to NC
in one stretch is tougher than it looks.

Though this was with very light traffic. During the whole trip there was
only on one short 10-15 km stretch (somewhere between Umea and
Lulea) where I hit a narrow road and enough traffic to build up a queue
behind a slow moving vehicle. Everywhere else there was adequate
passing places or no traffic, I suspect that it would be worse when the
midnight sun is actually available.

Well that's it for now (hope that it isn't too long)

Tim


  #2  
Old August 30th, 2005, 06:14 PM
Des Small
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"tim \(moved to sweden\)" writes:

Hoorah for TRs, for sure, but why are you posting this in
alt.evleth.met-reports of all places?

In the morning I need some fuel and unfortunately the place that I
stop only has 'automats'. It can't be that hard and I give it a go.
After it eats my money I take a further 20 minutes and some help
from the only non-English speaking Swede in the world to eventually
work out which buttons I have to press to get that which I have paid
for. Whatever anyone else says, these things are not easy to use if
you can't read the instructions. I shall make sure to avoid them in
future


You moved to Sweden but you can't read Swedish? I hadn't imagined.

[...]

Whilst I am there the coaches from the Coastal Steamer arrive and
it disproves my theory that it is only frequented by Americans. There
is one coach for English speakers, one for Norwegian, one combined
for the Mediterranean languages, and four(!) for German speakers.
I wonder if this coach trip is in included in the wallet busting steamer
fare or an extra? Perhaps it doesn't matter.


In my experience, none of the excursions are bundled, but that may
depend on the bundle. I got the cheapie scruff-bag sleep on the floor
ticket, and it certainly wasn't included in that. (I only got up as
high as Tromsø anyway.)

[...]

Well that's it for now (hope that it isn't too long)


Not for me, thanks. I don't think, on balance, that I'd fancy it much
myself, but it makes for a good read.

Des
  #3  
Old August 30th, 2005, 06:16 PM
Kristian
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"tim \(moved to sweden\)" wrote:

Having been somewhat pessimistic about my chances for going on
this trip, and then doing it, I feel I ought to write you a report, so here
it is.

Nice trip report - and glad to hear you got your car fixed :-)

Kristian
  #4  
Old August 30th, 2005, 07:54 PM
Padraig Breathnach
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"tim \(moved to sweden\)" wrote:

Having been somewhat pessimistic about my chances for going on
this trip, and then doing it, I feel I ought to write you a report, so here
it is.

....
Thanks, Tim. An enjoyable read.

Based on what you report, I don't think my list of target destinations
has been revised. It seems like a lot of travelling for not so much
tourism, and expensive even for Scandinavia.

Two observations:
- I was surprised to note that they have miles in Sweden.
- There is another Swede who doesn't speak English. She works in a
café in Stockholm.

I hope to learn how you got back to base.

--
PB
The return address has been MUNGED

  #5  
Old August 30th, 2005, 08:03 PM
tim \(moved to sweden\)
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"Padraig Breathnach" wrote in message
news
"tim \(moved to sweden\)" wrote:

Having been somewhat pessimistic about my chances for going on
this trip, and then doing it, I feel I ought to write you a report, so
here
it is.

...
Thanks, Tim. An enjoyable read.

Based on what you report, I don't think my list of target destinations
has been revised. It seems like a lot of travelling for not so much
tourism, and expensive even for Scandinavia.

Two observations:
- I was surprised to note that they have miles in Sweden.


Sorry, my distances were in English miles (as per the car's
odometer).

The distance that I travelled was 263 Swedish miles.

;-)

Tim


  #6  
Old August 30th, 2005, 08:15 PM
Kristian
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Padraig Breathnach wrote:

- I was surprised to note that they have miles in Sweden.


Actually they do use a unit called "mil" in Sweden and Norway as
well. But whereas an English mile is around 1.6km, a Swedish is 10
km´s.

Kristian
  #7  
Old August 30th, 2005, 08:55 PM
Ulrich Neumann
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tim (moved to sweden) wrote:

Thanks for your trip report!

This first part is hopefully going to be helpful hints to others who may
like to try the route to that final tip of Europe before you end up
driving into the sea. If it meets with approval, I'll report on the rest of
the holiday.


I am definitely interested.

the holiday. BTW I am in my GB RDH car so overtaking
possibilities are important information for my trip.


What's an RDH car and what is so special about it? What does RDH
actually stand for?

Thanks.

Ulrich

  #8  
Old August 30th, 2005, 10:31 PM
tim \(moved to sweden\)
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"Ulrich Neumann" wrote in message
...
tim (moved to sweden) wrote:

Thanks for your trip report!

This first part is hopefully going to be helpful hints to others who may
like to try the route to that final tip of Europe before you end up
driving into the sea. If it meets with approval, I'll report on the rest
of
the holiday.


I am definitely interested.

the holiday. BTW I am in my GB RDH car so overtaking
possibilities are important information for my trip.


What's an RDH car and what is so special about it? What does RDH
actually stand for?


Oops: RHD (do you still need an explanation?)

tim


  #9  
Old August 30th, 2005, 11:01 PM
Ulrich Neumann
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Posts: n/a
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tim (moved to sweden) wrote:

What's an RDH car and what is so special about it? What does RDH
actually stand for?


Oops: RHD (do you still need an explanation?)

tim


Ahh, now googling for this abbreviation yields results that make sense
to me. Not knowing about the meaning of either RDH or RHD I actually
thought that it could mean something like your car being very slow
and/or big which would make it difficult for you to overtake other cars ;-)

Ulrich
  #10  
Old August 30th, 2005, 11:09 PM
Padraig Breathnach
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DDT Filled Mormons wrote:

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:54:41 +0100, Padraig Breathnach
wrote:

- There is another Swede who doesn't speak English. She works in a
café in Stockholm.


She was probably just nervous. All Swedes understand English, they
just might not feel like speaking it!

Am I that intimidating?

I am convinced that she did not understand me, and she called a
colleague over to take our order for one coffee, one tea.

On the other hand (OTOH, if you prefer) when we were seeking
directions on the street I opened my request by asking a man "Do you
speak English?", and he replied "Of course".

--
PB
The return address has been MUNGED
 




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